http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php en markgeyer@msn.com Copyright 2010 2010-08-08T16:55:30+00:00 http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/i_slapped_this_t-sb_in_the_face/ http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/i_slapped_this_t-sb_in_the_face/#When:16:55:30Z I have a 06 Tacoma PreRunner (RWD), SR5, 4.0L, 5 speed automatic, double cab, Sport, Speedway Blue with 82,000 miles (bought it used). Toyota puts out T-SB’s which are basically articles of things about your vehicle… So, this is kind of old, but I posted it on a Toyota Tacoma forum a while back. I have a 06 Tacoma PreRunner (RWD), SR5, 4.0L, 5 speed automatic, double cab, Sport, Speedway Blue with 82,000 miles (bought it used). Toyota puts out T-SB’s which are basically articles of things about your vehicle that are messed up (factory, faulty or otherwise). T-SB-0326-08, is an article saying that in the factory the front timing cover wasn’t sealed properly which means it will leak oil until it’s fixed. In the article it lists what VIN numbers were affected, and yup, mine was one of them and sure enough it was leaking oil from cylinder #1. For me the power train warranty is not in play. I would recommend for someone who has this issue and is still in the power train warranty range of 5 years or 60,000 miles to have the dealership take care of this. But if your like me, I would recommend doing this yourself to save lots of $$$ and to learn a little bit more about your truck. Also, take your sweet ass time, I did all of this in 5 days after work each day - a pro, like a Toyota technician would have this done in under 8 hours. If your serious about tackling this yourself, get these:   Get a repair manual: http://bit.ly/bmFVDD   Also reference the Toyota OEM repair manual for 05+ Tacoma’s: http://bit.ly/aRy17Y   Get the proper tools (see repair manuals) Don’t attempt doing this with any chicken shit tools   A engine ‘conversion gasket set’ ($50-60). Go here: http://www.rockauto.com and search for your model truck, under Engine > there should be a Conversion Gasket Set folder Below are some pictures that I took, sorry for not taking a pic at every step, I was going to shoot a time elapsed video but, I got lazy, ha. (pic above) Taken after radiator and valve covers (or as Toyota officially calls them ‘cylinder head cover sub-assembly’) were removed. (pic above) Taken after timing cover was removed. (pic above) MISC parts everywhere. (pic above) The timing cover w/ water pump (cleaned up). (pic above) All put back together. In doing this the hardest parts were:   Taking off and putting on the crankshaft pulley bolt (185 ft/lbs). When taking it off, use the proper crankshaft pulley tool to hold the pulley while taking the bolt off with a breaker bar. When putting it on, same thing, but use a torque wrench to tighten.   Applying the RTV silicone on the timing cover and aligning it up with the crankshaft and tightening all 24 bolts/2 nuts before the silicone dried (10-15 minutes). Recommend to dry fit the timing cover so the oil pump aligns with the crankshaft angle.   Other than those two things, this was easy. It was actually kind of fun, plus I think my truck runs a little better because of the fixed oil pressure and I applied all bolts to the spec’d torque. Follow me on Twitter if you’d like. Fixed 2010-08-08T16:55:30+00:00 http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/html5_for_web_designers/ http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/html5_for_web_designers/#When:19:17:04Z I just got my copy of this amazing book (from what I hear)! I’m so glad too because Jeffrey Zeldman said that they had to do a 2nd run of the book… I just got my copy of this amazing book (from what I hear)! I’m so glad too because Jeffrey Zeldman said that they had to do a 2nd run of the book and they would be sending out books sometime late July. So I’m so glad I have one from the first batch before they ran out. No doubt the guys at A List Apart have their shit together with creating An Event Apart and now A Book Apart. Some amazing guys with amazing talent! Also, if you work in the web design industry, you need to check out The Big Web Show, it’s nice to watch/listen to while you work. I can’t wait to read it though. I’ll post a review of it when I have time to read and write about it. More to come… Follow me on Twitter if you’d like. News 2010-07-23T19:17:04+00:00 http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/islate_concept_art/ http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/islate_concept_art/#When:00:12:37Z I made a concept of Apple’s new iSlate. Apple sent out an invite to an event on January 27th to unveil their latest and greatest software and hardware. Items being unveiled are the new iSlate and iPhone 4.0 software. “Come See Our Latest Creation”, says Apple’s invitation to the presses. Above is an exercise I did to create the new Apple iSlate product based on the allegedly leaked specs seen below (I’m not sure if their real or not but who knows, they sound good though). The specs state that this iSlate will project as well, that’s pretty sweet considering how small it is - plus it’ll be handy for educators to use (instructors, teachers, small businesses, etc). UPDATE: Well the iPad was released. But what a horrible name, iBook or iTabet would have been better - it sounds too close to a tampon title. Anyways, this was a fun exercise to do - even though when it was released it was a bit bigger than I anticipated and with a lot less “gadgets” than I thought (it still needs a camera). Follow me on Twitter if you’d like. News 2010-01-21T00:12:37+00:00 http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/user_experience_design_to_me/ http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/user_experience_design_to_me/#When:06:20:59Z I get asked this question a lot from people who aren’t in the field of digital design and/or from acquaintances who ask what I do for a living - What is user experience? What is user interface design? Really my response differs depending who I’m talking to. A general response that I give to this question is: It’s a form of quality and consistency through purpose, design, interaction, and reaction of a digital environment. This is usually followed with a blank stare by the person who asked, as if I lived in the matrix or some shit. If I get this reaction, I follow up and say it’s a different form of graphic design, but for the web. People usually respond well to that, with a “Cool.” or a “Sweet.” If they do relate, I break it down a little further for context. So, with you being in the field user experience, it’s only been around for a little while, right, ever since computers have been around? Wrong. Think of it like this, some form of user experience was put into everything you use every day. From your car to the TV remote, those devices have gone through countless hours of mapping, planning, concepting, testing, etc. to make a quality product that you can benefit from and easily use in whatever tasks that device does for you. Using this same concept in the context of software and the web, user experience design plays a HUGE role in creating cohesive products for users shown by enhancing content by purpose, flow, layout, aesthetics, and making any relatively challenging functional goals intuitive. Your providing a service for users and if you succeed in doing all this, the user will be back because it works and if not, they’ll use something else that provides that same service better. Anyways that’s my little rant about user experience design. Below are some great articles on this same topic: > Understanding Web Design by Jeffrey Zeldman > Exactly what is “User Experience Design,” anyway? by Kevin Mattice Follow me on Twitter if you’d like. User experience 2009-12-13T06:20:59+00:00 http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/a_web_site_for_sore_eyes/ http://www.markgeyer.com/index.php/site/blog/a_web_site_for_sore_eyes/#When:05:38:34Z Well, finally I got up off my butt and made a portfolio site that I’m relatively proud of. Besides the planning of the site, the majority of the time was spent sifting through gigs of work to find pieces that best represented my skills. In this post I’ll go through some of the steps I went through to make this site. I started 3 weeks ago (or so) and finished it today (11/21). Granted this is only a web site, but like any user center design process, it all starts with purpose, “what” content goes “where”, “why”, and then during wire framing, the “how” is answered. Below are some thoughts I had about where content should go, just organizing: WIRE FRAMING & CONTENT After this I flushed out the wire frames a little more, trying to nail down actual sizes to mark how big the content will end up being and to work some layout issues (flows) I was having on how people would experience different sections. During wire framing I was gathering content at the same time - since this took a while, it gave me time to plan based on the types of media I was finding: images, swf’s, flv’s, etc. Below is some early wire framing: DESIGN I went through 4 different concepts before liking a direction. Simply enough it was all based on color and the idea of there being ribbons or bands to signify the different sections of the site. I liked it and I went for it - I would describe it as a clean grunge, not too clean, but grungy enough to call it dirty, ha. Below is the fourth concept I went with, I built it out a little more than what you see here obviously. BEHAVIORS Before coding everything together I read up on HTML 5 and thought that it’s just too early for it to be supported fully, but I did take the same architecture approach (articles, sections, etc.) and scaled everything back to div’s. Everything was based on standards and compliance, I wanted to keep everything very clean - I ended up coding everything in XHTML, CSS 2.1 (using 3.0’s text-shadow), but overall nothing fancy. For a JavaScript Library I used JQuery. For viewing portfolio work I used Shadowbox and modified it to fit what I needed it to do. LazyLoad for all linked images and various other JQuery behaviors. Finally I wanted a strong CMS to manage everything. I used Expression Engine, as far as I’m concerned it’s the best! As long as you watch the videos and read the documentation it’s easy, there is a ton of support you can find, and as long as you plug in complaint code it’ll kick out complaint code, which was a plus for me. Anyways that’s it, take a look around and try to break stuff, ha… Now that I have a home to type too, stay turned. I’ll be posting tutorials, movie reviews, news, family stuff, and other random stuff. Follow me on Twitter if you’d like. News 2009-11-22T05:38:34+00:00